The radiant interiors of the 1950s and 1960s did not suddenly appear without some background of concentrated attention. Apart from early sketchbook drawings and small bedrooms painted decades earlier, Cossington Smith experimented with the subject again in the 1940s. Her solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in 1947 included no less than ten interiors. The significance of these smaller interiors resides in the opportunities they opened up for the artist to experiment, and in their sense of return – like a persistent undercurrent in a musical score, finally rising up as a presence to be reckoned with.